On the philosophical foundations of Michael Sandel’s public philosophy
Henrique Brum1
ABSTRACT
Michael Sandel has become a pop star philosopher. Around the world people crowd
auditoriums to hear him, and his videos on Youtube.com are among the most accessed. And
one of his most fascinating ideas is his project of a public philosophy. According to Sandel,
the State neutrality towards the different conceptions of the good is an unfeasible goal, and
the a way of avoiding the feeling of disempowerment face the major institutions and
corporations (a feeling that is spread throughout the populations of western democracies) is to
allow to the population to engage in a wide debate about the big moral question, even if to do
so it be necessary to allow people to use religious arguments.The goal of this paper is to
explore the foundations underlying the idea of a public philosophy in the works of Sandel. To
do so, I will, at first show how he describes the liberal self (specially in the view of John
Rawls) in Liberalism and the limits of justice and in “The procedural republic and the
unencumbered self” and why, to him, such a concept is insufficient to defend the difference
principle against Robert Nozick’s objections. This will be our chance to investigate Sandel’s
concept of self, its relation with his concept of community and how these two concepts
legitimate the idea of a public philosophy. Then, I will analyze the main objections against
such an idea and the concept of self that animates it. Finally, I will conclude arguing that,
although there are strong objections against it, it continues to be an important and inspiring
contribution to contemporary debate about the nature and the paths of social justice.
Keywords: Sandel; Rawls; Nozick; Neutrality; Public Philosophy
1
Doctoral student for Programa de Pós- Graudação em Filosofia (PPGF) of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
(UFRJ), oriented by Professor Dr. Maria Clara Marques Dias. Receives a scholarship from CAPES. E-mail:
henriquebrum@bol.com.br Address: Rua Urucuia, Nº 570 Casa 18 a Fundos, Vila Valqueire, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil. Zip code: 21321-310
On the philosophical foundations of Michael Sandel’s public philosophy
Henrique Brum2
INTRODUCTION
Michael Sandel has become a pop star philosopher. Around the world people crowd
auditoriums to hear him, and his videos on Youtube.com are among the most accessed. But
long before becoming famous, Sandel were already one of the most prominent political
philosophers nowadays, belonging to the so called “communitarian” strand of political theory.
And one of his most fascinating ideas is his project of a public philosophy. According to
Sandel, the State neutrality towards the different conceptions of the good is an unfeasible
goal, and the a way of avoiding the feeling of disempowerment face the major institutions and
corporations (a feeling that is spread throughout the populations of western democracies) is to
allow to the population to engage in a wide debate about the big moral question, even if to do
so it be necessary to allow people to use religious arguments.
As expected liberal are not very enthusiastic about such an idea, under the argument
that there is a real chance that minoritarian religious groups end up being oppressed in the
process. Anyway, the discussion about to which extent is it feasible to defend the State
neutrality (or if it is possible at all) is crucial in contemporary political debate.
The goal of this paper is to explore the foundations underlying the idea of a public
philosophy in the works of Sandel. To do so, I will, at first show how he describes the liberal
self (specially in the view of John Rawls) in Liberalism and the limits of justice and in “The
procedural republic and the unencumbered self” and why, to him, such a concept is
insufficient to defend the difference principle against Robert Nozick’s objections. This will be
our chance to investigate Sandel’s concept of self, its relation with his concept of community
and how these two concepts legitimate the idea of a public philosophy. Then, I will analyze
the main objections against such an idea and the concept of self that animates it. Finally, I will
conclude arguing that, although there are strong objections against it, it continues to be an
important and inspiring contribution to contemporary debate about the nature and the paths of
social justice.
2
Doctoral student for Programa de Pós- Graudação em Filosofia (PPGF) of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
(UFRJ), oriented by Professor Dr. Maria Clara Marques Dias. Receives a scholarship from CAPES. . E-mail:
henriquebrum@bol.com.br Address: Rua Urucuia, Nº 570 Casa 18 a Fundos, Vila Valqueire, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil. Zip code: 21321-310
THE RAWLSIAN SELF
In liberalism and the limits of justice, Sandel starts his analysis of justice as fairness
with an analysis of the rawlsian self. According to Sandel, either on the original position or in
everyday life Rawls supposes an abstract agent model, in which the self is conceived as
ontologically prior to his community and to his ends and independent of them , and that for a
strong reason. Consider the ancient hierarquical societies. In them, the individual had, since
birth, his life possibilities and his social position established by the community. All his
values, goals, plans, ends, desires possible paths in life determined from the start. His life, in a
certain way, were not his and the self were dissolved in social context.
Viewed under this perspective, the idea of a self that was free from any bonds prior to
his own choices appears in modern age as a liberating promise (SANDEL, 2005. 231-235).
Take Kantian morality as an example. Kant’s transcendental self acts freely only when it can
ignore all surrounding contingencies. Its personal bonds, interests, ends, and even its desire to
be happy are irrelevant to its moral acting, which is only properly moral when all external
influences to the self are nullified in favor of a Will which, in building and following the
general formulations of the categorical imperative, establish itself as actually free,
autonomous, moral (KANT, 2002. 1-79).
Rawls inherited from Kant the idea of a self ontologically prior to his bounds and ends
(RAWLS, 2002. 279-283). In the original position, the parts also ignore (in fact, they do not
know) their ends and their contingent characteristics (values, interests, affiliations, class, race,
sex…). That makes the veil of ignorance prevent arguments based on private conceptions of
the good to participate in the formulation of the concept of justice, and reserving to then a
later part of the political process, when people, in their everyday life, will have full
opportunities to adopt, revise, or reject them, since they conform to the restrictions imposed
by the principles of justice, that were already established. That is what guarantees priority of
the right over the good (SANDEL, 2005. 97).
On the other hand, this conception of the self also guarantees that Rawls’ principles
building method to become an exercise of pure procedural justice. With no ends or values to
guide the formulation of the principles of justice, there are no external parameters to assess
the rightness of the result, so that, since the premises added to the procedure be correctly
guided by the reflective equilibrium method, the result of the original position must be
considered just. The validity of the principles is then secured.
But not only the parties in the original position are regarded his way. In their political
aspects, real people are regarded as having the two moral powers, including the capacity to
have, formulate, evaluate and reject a conception of the good. Nevertheless, if I can choose to
reject my ends, values, bonds, characteristics that were accidentally added to me over the
years, so they are not essential to me. At least in my political dimension, I can be regarded as
prior to all these characteristics, that are regarded as accidents that I happen to have, in
opposition to a necessary core self ontologically prior to them. The idea of the
“unencumbered self” is applied then not only to imaginary people in a construction procedure,
but to real people in the real world (SANDEL, 2005. 181-182). In Sandel’s words:
Now the unencumbered self describes first of all the way we stand toward the things
we have, or want, or seek. It means there is always a distinction between the values I
have and the person I am. To identify any characteristics of my aims, ambitions,
desirers and so on, is always to imply some subject “me” standing behind them, at a
certain distance, and the shape of this “me” must be given prior to any of the aims or
attributes I bear. (SANDEL, 1984. Italics form the author.)
NOZICK’S ARGUMENT
Although Sandel criticizes the self theory underlying justice as fairness often and in a
number of ways, I will focus here on the one related to Rawls’ defense of the difference
principle against the criticisms of Robert Nozick and Nozick’s reply. According to Rawls, the
parties in the original position will agree in adopting the different principle when facing the
problem of the unequal distribution of talents and of the arbitrary inequalities in life
opportunities and perspectives that follow from being born in different social classes
(RAWLS, 2002 64-89). In other words, they agree that, since they cannot avoid arbitrariness
in the natural distribution of talents and luck, they can, nevertheless, avoid their effects,
benefiting the least advantaged, since that allowing some to benefit from morally arbitrary
contingencies while others not would be clearly unfair. So, they agree in regarding such
contingencies as common assets that must be used for the common good (specially for the
least advantaged). It will be for bringing such benefits that such contingencies will reward the
people who happen to have them with the best positions in the social and economical
inequalities, not for any intrinsic of them or the people who happen to have them. The
assessment about to reward or not a given contingency occurs now after (and not before) the
definition by the institutions of which of them are relevant in each specific context, and the
concept of merit is replaced by the one of “legitimate expectations” (SANDEL, 2005. 105107).
From that we can see how the justification of the difference principle in tantamount of
the concept of the person above described. It is because my natural talents and capabilities
and my social position are regarded as contingencies that I happen to have, and not essential
to my identity (what allows me to be conceived without them) that they are regarded as
common assets, and I am regarded as merely an accidental depositary of them, and that is why
I am allowed to benefit from them only in the name of the benefit of all, especially of the least
advantaged (SANDEL, 2005. 136-137).
Although Nozick criticizes in a number of ways de difference principle, one is
especially important to us (NOZICK, 2011.295-299). For Nozick, from the fact that the
natural talents and the social contingencies are arbitrarily distributed one cannot infer that,
therefore, they belong to the society. Let us examine the argument more accurately. Rawls
claimed that, once the parties in the original position concluded that it would be unfair that
some people benefited from contingencies arbitrarily distributed, such a benefit would only
take place if such contingencies worked for the benefit of the least advantaged, what means to
say that they are from now on regarded as a common asset that belongs to the whole society.
Nozick’s argument starts with the following question: What give to the parties the
right to treat such contingencies like this? Suppose for a moment that I indeed do not own my
abilities, my virtues of character, my social position, being instead a simple depositary of
them. Even then, what give to the society the right to treat them as its assets? In other words,
why (and how), from the fact that they do not belong to me, must one infer that they belong
to the society? Rawls seems to face this logical step (in fact a huge jump) as natural, due to
the problem that is created by doing nothing about it (that is, to allow that people benefit or
suffer due to morally arbitrary contingencies).
But this problem is not necessarily an injustice, since there is an alternative
(libertarian) way of dealing with it. Even though they do not belong to me, why not simply
leave them where they are, allowing their depositaries to benefit from them as it pleases them,
just the same way we allow to someone who finds a rough diamond besides the road to keep
it? If they do not belong to me, they do not belong to no one else either, so that the natural
solution seems to be simply not doing anything, especially if we consider that no entity (“the
society”, “the basic structure”…) own them either, so that if such to entities is given the right
to dispose of them as it pleases them (in our case, “to benefit the least advantaged”) without a
good reason to do so, it seems that I am used as a means to the satisfaction of the common
good, exactly what justice as fairness sought to avoid.
We can see how deep this criticism cuts. It was exactly the idea that my abilities and
my social position contingent features of mine (that are beyond the core of my self) that
allowed Rawls to consider me as a mere depositary of them, what in turn allowed the society
to use them for the common good without using me as a means. Nevertheless, if I am not their
owner, society is not either, so that consider them a common asset demands a justification that
Rawls, sadly, never provides. The idea of the unencumbered self that inspires the argument in
the end is in the end unable to provide a good defense against the libertarian objection,
leaving not only the difference principle, but all the rawlsian project of a redistributive State,
with serious problems.
SANDEL’S COMMUNITY
For Sandel, the only way to save the difference principle is to give up the
unencumbered self. Although being based on this kind of self, such a principle is not
protected by it from the libertarian objection. To do so, it is necessary to provide a reason that
explain why my talents and social position should be regarded as common assets (SANDEL,
2005. 143-144).
And such a reason is provided when we recollect what started the arbitrariness
argument. According to Rawls, I do not deserve my abilities and my social position, not only
due to the fact that they are distributed unequally and arbitrarily, but also because even the
initiative of developing them is derived from the systems of social values that the society
inculcated in me (to use my parent’s money in my education and not to buy drugs, for
instance, or to develop my skills to be a good scholar), besides the fact that valuable abilities
are only valuable because that specific society considers them as so (eloquent people in a
society of hunters are less valued then strong ones, while in a society it is the opposite). But if
this value system was inculcated in me by society, if it was it that gave birth, allowed the
existence of and nourished this abilities from the start, we can finally say that it do have the
prerogative of considering them as common assets (SANDEL, 2005. 195-195).
The objection, though, that to do so is to use the individual as a means to the ends of
others cannot be adequately answered unless we make the self wider. That is so because what
differentiates the ends of others from common ends is the fact that the latter are also my ends.
But that will only occur if we can regard the self being constituted also by its ends, values and
bonds, and not just the empty core of the rawlsian self. In fact, in doing so we can see how
this approach turns the self into a richer and wider one, and describes more accurately ours
everyday moral experience. I cannot be considered anymore as an independent person that
happened to be born in this family, in this community, with these values. All this now is
regarded as constitutive, as a part of me. But if my values ends and bonds constitute me, and
if they exist in and are nourished by the society in which I am, that means to say I am
constituted, or at least a part of me, by this society. In fact, term “society” itself is now
inaccurate, once, since we make the self larger to this far, we already crossed the line between
a society and a community in the constitutive sense, used by Sandel. In this sense, people in a
community indeed share common aspects of their identities, and I cannot leave my
community without stop being, in a certain way, myself (SANDEL, 2005. 199-206; 228-229).
This new concepts of self and community have moral and epistemological
consequences for our debate. In my continuing process of self-knowledge, I can often ask for
help for people that are bonded to me, and that may discover aspects of my identity that were
hidden from me. Nevertheless, the multitude o communities in which take part 3, and the
unique way I move through all of them make me a singular being. The line between the self
and the community, though is now thinner than ever, still holds. I can describe myself as
belonging do different communities, assess my participation in them, face them critically and,
in extreme cases, even refuse or reject them, tough now, comparing this formulation of self
with Rawls’, it is (as in fact is) a much more painful process. That is what avoids the frontiers
between the self and the community to collapse, what would in turn drive us back to a
radically situated self, with no control over its life narrative4.
Now we can see that Sandel finally has all the conditions to adress the libertarian
objection. The community is entitled to the right of considerate my abilities a common asset
because it allowed and nourished their development from the beginning, often to the expense
of others. And that is not to use me as a means because the ends which these abilities will help
to reach are my ends, ands of a community that generated me and constitutes me, and in
reference to which I cannot define myself, even if I am a single individual. I may be not the
owner of my abilities, but neither are its depositary. I am for them more like a guardian, in the
name of a community in which I am inserted. Nozick’s objection is then addressed, saving in
the process not only the difference principle, but the entire project of a redistributive State,
even at the cost of the unencumbered self.
3
This is later, specified by the notion, of concentric circles of communitarian bonds, weaker at every wider
circle, which start with my family and extend until reach the whole mankind (SANDEL, 1996. 338-351).
4
I use this concept on purpose, since Sandel’s conception of self is very similar to MacIntyre’s narrative
conception of the person (MACINTYRE, 2001. 343-378).
COMMUNITY AND PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY
These very observations, tough, grant the possibility and the legitimacy of a public
philosophy. Just as society has generated and nourished my abilities, it has made the same
with my ends and values. We can, therefore, consider the social ends and values as common
assets. And just as it is necessary to debate, including in the realm of the State, how articulate
the abilities to achieve common good, the Estate also must debate which kinds of values and
ends, considered as common assets, must be stimulated do thrive in a given community, with
its particular history. Of course, in this conception of the person, my ends and values define
me in a much more profound way, the reason for which they cannot be simply imposed to me
(not, at least, without destroying the now thin line separating the self and the community). But
the community could indeed bring the debate about values and ends to the realm of the State,
regarded now also as a forum of construction and propagation of common values.
It is exactly this idea of a debate, in the society and int the State, about common ends
and values that constitutes the core of Sandel’s project of a public philosophy. That is what
allow him to stimulate the participation of the people in the big moral questions of the nation,
and in doing so to allow that people use religious and moral doctrines express their ends and
values. Because, in the end, this big moral debate is all about values and ends.
POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS
Inspiring as it is, though, the idea of a public philosophy and the self theory underlying
it raise many objections, from which I will three (the most serious ones for me). The fist one
has an eminently practical aspect, while the other two are mainly theoretical.
Oppressive communities
The first one is about the fear the propagation of Sandel’s, self theory could make
more difficult for people to leave potentially oppressive communities. We often hear, for
instance, stories about people who abandoned fundamentalist religious sects where they were
raises since childhood, and how hard it was for them the readapt for life outside such
communities. The idea of an unencumbered self, prior to its bonds, which is socially
widespread in the West, allow us to regard ourselves as independent of our social bonds. It
was it what, partly, allowed then to conceive themselves outside those communities and how
independent of them. This is one of the great qualities of this concept. But if the idea os a self
like Sandel’s became socially widespread, wouldn’t it make much more difficult those
people’s liberation? Wouldn’t it, in practice, fuel the oppressive aspects, not laudable at all, of
the communal life? Sandel could argue that the keep of a line, fragile as now it is, between
the self and the community, allows self still to consider it critically and even abandon it.
Besides, he could argue, as his conception translates in a more accurate way our everyday
moral experience (in which leaving a c community is much more painful than a simple choice
among contingent ends), it gives to the person who want to liberate itself from her community
a more realistic perspective about what goes ahead, what in the end turns to aid her to
endeavor the task. But how many of them will never do it fearing the suffering caused by it,
believing such a degree of oppressions is common to all the communities, or simply believing
that oppression is a small price to pay for communal life (at least the only one they know)?
The need for an expanded self
This objection, a more theoretical one, is about to what extent it is necessary to
abandon the unencumbered self to defend the difference principle (or any other distributive
principle). The first part of Sandel’s argument, he argues that society has the right to consider
natural abilities and arbitrariness of social birth as common assets due to the fact that it
allows and nourishes their flourishing. This objector, tehn, woud ask: “Why not stopping
here? We can continue to regard the self as naked from his contingent features, since it is still
regarded as a mere depositary of such contingencies. And thecnically, we can affirm that we
are not using it as a means, since what we use from him (the benefits from such
contingencies) is not ‘him’, but a contingent feature of it.” The problem with this intermediate
solution, though seems to be not as much in its concept of self as in its concept of community.
In other words: What looks like a community of persons above described? If the selves are
still regarded as unencumbered, if their ends, values and bonds are still regarded as merely
accidental, the concept of community is radically transformed, if it survives at all. Since the
ends of individuals are now regarded as being chosen by them, and not as defining them,
community is not anymore regarded as constitutive of them, and is from now on regarded
merely as “private society”, as a group of heterogeneous individuals that seek to achieve their
interests. The problem here is that, since that the individual has the same values of the
community is regarded merely as a coincidence, when it was the case that individual’s and
community’s ends do not concur, the former could, in principle, simply to choose to leave
such community, not being disturbed by it anymore. And if he was forced to cooperate with
communal ends (that in this sense are merely the ends of the individuals who happen to form
it), which were not his, he would be being used as a means for the benefit of others (that only
accidentally form the common good). As we can see, the constitutive sense of community,
and the self theory which animates it, is necessary for the argument to hold.
Pluralism and coercion
The third objection, tough theoretical, may have important practical consequences.
According to it, the idea of a common realm of shared values and ends above which one can
debate big moral questions describes well relatively homogeneous societies. But it is far from
being the situation of large western democracies, in which reigns a complete (and complex)
pluralism of values nowadays. In these cases, is it possible to talk about a common realm of
shared values and ends? E, if don’t (as it seems to be the case), how to put into practice a
public philosophy so that the different parties can even understand each other? A seductive
solution would be to use the ends and values of the majority, but against that Rawls has a
striking argument (RAWLS, 2005. 133-137). In pluralist societies, Rawls argues, there is a
multitude of reasonable comprehensive doctrine, so that using the State’s coercive apparatus
based in a given comprehensive doctrine is to coerce people without giving them reason that
they could reasonably accept, and that is unfair. Facing this argument, wouldn’t it be much
better to give up the idea of a public philosophy and adopt more modest concepts, like public
reason and overlapping consensus, that are still on the realm of the neutral State, especially
after the proviso added to public reason in Rawls’ last works (RAWLS, 2007)5? Sandel
answers that often the debate about moral questions is inevitable (SANDEL, 2012a. 321314)(he gives the abortion and the stem cells research examples) and, even when it is, it may
be undesirable to do so (SANDEL, 2012a. 314-321)(he the gay marriage example), but the
doubt remains about if it is possible to endeavor such task without risking to oppress
minoritarian groups. No doubt, this is the strongest objection against Sandel’s project, and its
resolution remains open in contemporary debate.
CONCLUSION
5
One can raise the objection that the ultimate forum of public reason is the Supreme Court, not a social debate.
But Rawls never hid his wish that public reason guided all aspects of the State’s decision making process, what
would include a social debate about the State’s measures (RAWLS, 2005. 215). Remember that Sandel does not
wish only that people debate about what the State is doing. He wants also they do about what it should do, and
that the conclusions of this debate inform and guide the State’s decision making. An institution like would by far
fit in the prerequisites for being constrained by public reason. Consider, for instance, that the first target of
Sandel’s political debate after he became worldwide famous is the role of markets in social life, a theme that for
being implemented would demand heavy State interventions in economy (SANDEL, 2012b. 9-20)
For sure, the idea of a public philosophy is far from being immune to criticisms, but
at the same time it proposes us a challenge. As Sandel tells us (SANDEL,2012a. 296-297), in
a time that conservative groups consider themselves the only source of moral guidance in
political debate, wouldn’t it be interesting that liberals entered this dispute and defeated
conservatives in their own game? Wouldn’t a wide moral debate involving us in our most
profound moral bonds help dissolving prejudices put into contact rival groups that seldom
debate nowadays? Of course, to do so in a way that adherents of different conceptions of the
good even understand each other is already a challenge, and the shadow of minority
oppression seems to be always in the next corner. Nevertheless, Sandel’s project is still an
important contribution for the definition of the nature and the paths of social justice.
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